


We Are Starting at the End

by galfridian



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Background Relationships, Character Study, F/M, Minor Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 22:12:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2598299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galfridian/pseuds/galfridian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abby remembers three things from her wedding day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Are Starting at the End

**Author's Note:**

> Written based on a prompt by sosobriquet on Tumblr: _Abby/Jake/Marcus. This is the road to ruin, and we are starting at the end._

They marry just after her twentieth birthday. Later, Abby forgets the date. She forgets the cut of her dress and the taste of the food.

From her wedding day, she carries three memories.

*

_One, they marry on a Sunday. "A holy day," Vera Kane whispers, pinning a leaf from the tree to Abby's hair. "A blessed day."_

 

She loses track of the days. Has it been two weeks since Marcus left? Or is it three? How many days since she last heard Clarke's voice?

And on and on it goes like this, days adding up, losing track of the days since the latest disaster.

It snows the day they return. Abby wakes at dawn to discover a fine layer of snow already blanketing the camp. It's beautiful, but her heart turns to stone as it grows heavier.

The morning slips by. She busies herself with her patients and her supplies. Practices turning herbs and plants into medicines and balms. Her hands are tired and stained by the time she considers lunch.

But then Raven's there, breathless and teetering. Wick is on her heel. "Abby," she says between gasps. Abby hears voices raised, excitement but not fear – she's learned to hear the difference.

Heart in her throat, she follows Raven and Wick out of the tent.

And they're there. Clarke and Marcus and the three boys. One of the guards is missing, but the rest of them – 

– the rest of them are _home_. It's snowing, big, wet drifts, and her fingers and toes are numb, but the sight of them is just _so_ – 

Then she has Clarke in her arms. " _Mom_ ," Clarke says, wrapping her arms around Abby's waist. And she's so grown, but for a heartbeat, she's just Abby's little girl.

Bellamy is injured, and they all look malnourished, but Jackson steps in. "I've got this," he says. He squeezes Clarke's shoulder, then he and Finn carry Bellamy into medical.

"Abby?" It's Marcus, taking a hesitant step toward her. "How – " he begins. He lifts a hand, gestures weakly at the camp.

"Okay," she says, keeping one arm around her daughter's shoulder. She can't imagine how she'll ever let her go again. "We're okay."

"Good." He smiles, but he can't meet her eyes.

"Marcus?" She steps toward him.

"They weren't there," he says. "The kids, they weren't –"

"But you brought her home," Abby says, and when she puts a hand on each of his shoulders, he looks like he wants to collapse in her arms. "We'll find the rest," she tells him, giving him the same promise he gave her a few weeks before.

 

That night, she asks Sinclair the date. "December 22," he says. "A Sunday."

 

*

_Two, her ring is small and light. It's cool when Jake slips it onto her finger. But his ring is heavy and warm. Solid, like him._

 

After Jake's death, she wears his ring on a chain around her neck. It's a reminder of what was taken from her; it's with great satisfaction that she sees both Jaha and Kane flinch the first time they see it.

But the chain and ring are a punishment for her just as much as they are for them. She betrayed Jake. She gambled with his life and lost.

Some days, it's heavier than others. Some days, it feels like an anchor around her neck.

Some days, it chokes.

 

On Earth, it's heavier. For months, she catches herself thinking, _Jake should be here._ This was his plan, everyone on the ground.

Then war and winter roll in, like two Titans stomping over them, and Abby realizes Jake's dream of Earth was only ever that: a dream.

So she mends wounds. The farmers, with no crops to tend, turn animal skins to coats. And then they send their people into cold and battle.

Fewer and fewer come back, even as they gain ground, and one day, Marcus doesn't stagger into camp until well after dark.

Medical is full of the wounded and sick, so she takes him to her tent. She cleans and dresses his wounds, then wipes away as much grime from his hands and face as she can. As she works, the ring and its chain come untucked from her shirt and hang between them.

Tonight, the ring and chain are gravity. They're a compass. They pull and point her toward Marcus, toward a mouth she's claimed only once before. But as she moves to him, his exhaustion gives way to sleep.

 

The next morning, Marcus pulls himself to his feet and shoulders his weapon. "No," Abby says, "you need to rest."

"Soon. We'll all rest soon," he whispers like a promise. His hands, warm but uncertain, find hers. His fingers brush the chain, wrapped around her left hand.

He doesn't speak – _can't speak_ – as she lifts the chain and places it around his neck. "Go," she says and hopes it works like a compass for him, too.

 

*

_Three, Marcus stands behind Jake as his witness. In his left hand, he holds her wedding band._

 

"I was a mess?" Jake says, laughing. " _You_ were covered in dirt!" To Abby, he whispers, "I thought Vera was going to read us the Traveler's Prayer right there and send us on into the next life."

It's a month before their wedding. The hours are ticking away – midnight, 1AM, 2AM – and they've all got work in the morning. Abby's day starts earliest, but she's nineteen, and she has her whole life to be responsible.

They're drunk, of course, and Jake and Marcus are sharing stories from their days running wild on the Ark. She'd never had the luxury, always had two strict parents watching her every move. Now, as her wedding date looms near, she wishes they were still alive to fret over everything.

It's strange, she thinks, to consider their lives before their paths crossed with hers. Before Jake belonged to her, he belonged to Marcus.

She remembers the Marcus she met, three years ago now, just starting his training with the guard. Wide grin, the type you have after a lifetime of mischief, and an ocean of ambition. He talked about the future like it was a mountain to climb.

 

Another hour slips by. "Okay," Jake says, yawning. "I give. I've gotta get some sleep." He kisses her hand, uncomfortable with Marcus watching. "Don't stay up too late?"

"Sure," Marcus says, sounding decidedly less than sincere. Jake rolls his eyes.

"We won't," Abby promises.

They watch him go, a comfortable silence falling stretching out between them. She's reminded again of the early days. Like Marcus, she'd just been starting out, and they often found themselves on the same graveyard shifts. On her breaks, she'd walk his patrol with him, and on his, he'd sit in medical with her. After a few months, silence was as comfortable as conversation.

Then she met Jake, his childhood best friend. Or as her father preferred to think of him, his most promising intern. Just before her father died, he made her promise to marry Jake. _A good man_ , he'd said, _smart, stable_. She knew that he saw her future with Jake and that it looked safe.

So she gave her promise to him, then she gave it to Jake.

But nights like these, it's hard to forget that before Jake belonged to her, she thought of Marcus as hers.

 

"Abby?"

It's 4:00. Her shift starts in three hours. She has to pick her wedding dress in the afternoon.

But now, she's abandoned the couch she'd shared with Jake, and she's settled against Marcus on the other.

"Yeah?"

He takes her hand. Her left hand. The one that will wear a ring in just a month. He laces their fingers together and she tightens her grip.

"If your father had lived…"

She kisses him.

(Once, before her father started handing her medical textbooks, Abby read a book about mountain climbing. The author described the air at the top of a peak so vividly that, just for a moment, Abby _felt_ it. When Marcus turns his body toward hers, his hands moving to her hair, that feeling comes back.)

 

*

The first wedding on Earth is held at the beginning of summer. The world around them is green and rich, full of promises. An alliance has formed between the Ark and the Grounders, prompting Mt. Weather to request a ceasefire.

For the moment, there's peace. It's a little like Jake dreamed it.

After the ceremony, there's a party. Someone's pieced together some instruments – or maybe some survived the journey to the ground – and as the warm day gives way to a cool night, there's dancing. 

"Come on, Princess," Bellamy says to Clarke. She takes his hand and lets him guide her into the crowd. As they reach the center, a shout goes up, and the teens – Bellamy and Clarke's people – pull them in.

"What do you think?" Marcus asks, offering her a flask of Jasper Jordan's moonshine. She takes a long swig and he grins.

"When we landed, it just felt like we fell into the middle of a mess. But this – now – is starting to feel like a beginning."

He lifts the flask in a toast and takes a swing. Moonlight catches on the chain around his neck. They lean against each other, shoulder-to-shoulder, and as Abby closes her eyes, the summer breeze carries cool air down from the mountains.


End file.
